Rockpath's Vision
by KingRockPath
Summary: A rogue kit haunted by his past is swept into a group of Clans around the lake - yet Stony is depressed, isolated, and broken, and the Clan cats don't much like "rogues". Will Stony save the Clans, or will he side with his Twolegplace kin of SCOURGE and BLOODCLAN as they plot for revenge? Takes place concurrently to The Sight in the Power of Three arc.
1. Exile

Disclaimer: I don't own Warriors or any of the characters, settings, or plotlines in this book, and this work is not intended to be sold or make profit in any way.

 _An unknown Twolegplace. Newleaf_.

"The stars shine, Stony. And so does-"

Bite's hacking mew faded as a monster sloshed past. Stony leapt back, scratching his claws on the roar-path, but the splash still froze his bones, blackening the gray fur of the tiny kit. He shook, but the chill remained after the splatter. So did the yellow lights flashing from the nests around him. And the darkness of the alley. And the thumping of his heart.

"You can't run." Bite's rising meow followed him, and his scent overpowered the stink of the roar-path.

"Wh-I'm only four moons…"

"Old enough to bring us freedom." Bite cut Stony off.

 _It's not fair._ _He doesn't_ listen _. I can't do this! I'm too young. I'm too_ -

He quivered under his brown-pelted "father"'s glare. Bite lashed his tail.

"You un...grate...ful whelp." The drawl was slower now. Calmer. And those yellow eyes pierced him. "I found you when your parents left you on the street. I raised you, protected you from _everyone_! I kept your freedom from Tyrant, kept you a rogue. Now he...now Tyrant's up on that wall alone. His forces distracted by a few of ours. He has a soft spot for kits. All you need to do is talk to him. Just talk. We'll take care of the rest."

Tyrant. Leader of the Upwalker-alleys. His cats were everywhere, killing, stealing...at least that was what Bite said. All he'd ever seen was them giving out food, or asking people to join. But Bite wouldn't lie.

 _I can't face Tyrant_. His heart fluttered. How could he? How could _anyone_ face that?

"I-"

" _No_ more argument." snarled Biter.

Stony stepped back. "O-ok."

"Then get to it. We'll be waiting."

Bite's teeth flashed in the darkness before he disappeared into the night.

* * *

 _A walltop above a Twoleg garden._

Stony's claws scuffed the stone. The massive cat-shadow ahead of him jerked, then kept muttering.

 _It's Tyrant. He's here. It's real - it's real, it's real, it's real, it's-_

"I give them food, I make them _strong_ , I make them _cats_ instead of pets, and this is how they repay me?"

A monster thundered past below, its whine cutting off Tyrant's whispers. The light gleamed across the darkened street - so far below. So far below.

 _I can do this_. _Bite believed in me_.

They were going to kill Tyrant. They hadn't told him that, but he knew. It was just what had to happen.

A gust of chilled wind nearly knocked him off his feet. He stumbled, fluttering his freezing tail, then caught himself. Panting, he stared into the rain-glowing garden below. So far below...

"We must unite, like that Sol said. We can't let the dogs or the Upwalkers defeat us. But they won't _listen_. Robbing no matter how much I tell them to stop. Fighting with each other. Egging on Bite and his fools. We'll _all_ die."

Tyrant's gruff mew pounded his ears with his scent. Yet...the scent was normal. No blood, or tears, or anything like he'd thought. Just a stale, usual catscent. That wasn't-

"What's this?" The meow softened, and Tyrant's blue pools gazed into Stony's. He trembled - everything shook - but held still. That look was odd - so calm. With Bite it was always a glare and a snarl, and shouldn't Tyrant be worse? Well, he did have a soft-

"Where do you come from, little one?"

 _So calm_...remember! _Remember what to do_.

"I...I don't know where my parents are. The Upwalkers-" He coughed intentionally, coursing spit through his body, writhing on the ground. The world spun. The stars...the garden...the street...the wind...

"What's wrong?" Tyrant's mew was panicked. "I'll get help!" A nose nudged Stony, and Tyrant's blue stare fired into his, his blue-gray face covering the sky.

 _So worried. I'd almost feel-_

Tyrant's mouth curled into a snarl. Something pulled on him. Then he jerked away.

Stony jumped up. Everything rang. Everything pounded.

A broken blue-gray body lay on the roar-path.

"You did well." Bite's mew jerked him away. "You freed us."

 _I...killed…_

His breaths fired out of his body. In-out. In-out. In-out.

"Come." snarled Biter. "There's something more for you to-"

" _No!_ " Stony's scream crashed louder than he'd ever thought it could, and he ran.

He ran across the wall, through the wind, down the alley, leaving Biter's yowls in the distance, charging from his home.

Leaping under the roofs, and through the Up-nests.

Slinking through the gardens, and squirming on the streets.

Hours and hours, sprinting, out of breath, out of time, out of-

Finally, he stood on a solid ground, some brown square that rose in the middle of the roar-path. A monster lay beside it, thrumming with its breath, its stench pummeling his nostrils, yet he was too tired to care. The sun rose, and its flower spread blood across the street. In-out. The breath puffed. Bite couldn't find him here. He wouldn't have to kill anyone again. He wouldn't-

The ground moved.

 _It's not attached to the monster. It's_ part _of the monster._

He tensed to spring off - then froze.

 _Would leaving be so bad?_

Bite would never find him if he left. _But it's my home. But not anymore. I killed Tyrant. I'm marked._

 _There's nothing for me here_.

He kept his haunches on the trembling wood. And the monster puffed a few roars, then left, trundling out of Twolegplace. Dragging him into the unknown and the horizon. Taking him on the wind and the stone.

Charging into that bloodstained sunrise.

* * *

 _The ThunderClan Camp._ _Morning_

" _There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws."_

"I don't understand," Firestar meowed. "Kin of my kin? Why are you telling me this?"

The old warrior blinked, his gaze fixed once more on Firestar.

And he continued.

" _From the wild will come another, son of stone, unwanted, unloved, outcast. And he will hold that power too_."

Firestar jerked awake, his belly tight with fear. He gazed out from his den at the waking camp below. His deputy, Brambleclaw, was stretching in the center of the clearing, flexing his powerful shoulders as he clawed at the ground. His daughter, Squirrelflight, padded toward her mate, greeting him with a purr.

 _I pray that I am wrong_ , Firestar thought. And yet his heart felt hollow; he feared the prophecy was about to reveal itself.

 _The three have come…_

 _But where is the other?_


	2. Welcome to Futility

_A Twolegplace closer to the lake. Leaf-bare_.

The grass rustled as Stony padded through the clearing, and the sun shone over an empty plain. The grass blazed as if daylight, its green glowing with heatless fire, yet something told Stony he was dreaming. Maybe it was the emptiness, or the silence, or the utter cloudlessness of the blue above. Or...maybe it was the feeling that something watched him from above.

"STONY,"

The voice boomed through his ears, and he crouched instinctively, feeling the grass brush against his belly.

 _Couldn't they have picked a softer voice?_

But then again, who was _they_?

"WE...STARCL..."

The voice cut off.

"TOO FAR AWAY. WE CANNOT REACH YOU. LISTEN-"

The sky fell silent. Stony shook his head, thumping it side-to-side to try to wake up. This dream was getting too weird.

A... _creature_...popped in front of him. Gray-bodied, then with black and white stripes on its snout, it trundled across the grass. Yet he could see its claws, and its size. He tensed his limbs.

"Stay," it called, in a voice that seemed to echo through his head.

 _It can_ talk _?_

"Who are you?" he yelped.

 _Too scared. Can't show weakness. No more weakness. No more._

"My name is Midnight," sighed the creature.

"What-"

"Does it matter?" The voice boomed through his head again. He unsheathed his claws. This... _thing_...was a threat, no matter what it said. He wouldn't be manipulated again. Just like Biter, trying to give him orders. _Nobody_ would give him orders. Never again would he-

Stony bared his teeth and sprang.

"Very well," the badger grumbled.

Voices surged in his head, overlapping, twisting, boring through his ears, and suddenly starlight exploded from his fur, and he glowed, and yowled but nobody could hear him, and a path of stars sliced the plain ahead of him - only it wasn't a plain, for it had become the Twolegplace, and he floated along the Twolegplace, across roar-paths, to a lake and a forest and a group of cats and-

He woke. Blinking out his sleep, Stony gulped at the stench in his nostrils. Before him lay a dark Up-nest, and in the street monsters grumbled, picking up more of those bags that lay on the cobblestones. His stomach screamed, yet without scraps he couldn't eat.

 _Useless, stupid, Bite-fool, never teaching me to hunt_.

Gray clouds rumbled overhead, yet he couldn't smell rain. And he could hear barks in the distance. More dogs, always chasing him...his vision blurred, and he nearly collapsed, his legs sliding on the stones before he caught himself. He needed food. And he needed to get out of this place. For more than a moon...maybe...he'd been running, stealing from monsters or Upwalkers, finding dead prey on the streets. Hiding from dogs and Upwalkers trying to snatch him, drinking water from stale pools, slumping down in alleys to rest...

 _What's the point? I won't live much longer, anyway._

He let out a shuddering breath, and his chest trembled. But something tingled in his paws, as he remembered the dream, the starlight glow, the promise of power…

And he didn't have anywhere _else_ to go.

 _It was a_ dream. _It isn't real._ _There aren't any cats in the sky to save me. That much, Bite told me the truth about._

But then why could he hear the calls, and why could he trace the path as clearly as if he'd followed it hundreds of times, and why did his fur prickle at the mind-sight of that lake? Even if it wasn't a destiny, at least it was _something_.

So he breathed in, let the dream flow through him again, and began to follow that path of stars.

* * *

 _ThunderClan camp._

Stony's eyes flickered open as something thudded beside him.

 _Is that...a_ mouse _?_

The scent trickled into him, and he tore at the prey beside him, tearing into strips and chewing it down, not even bothering to taste it as he shoveled every last bit down his throat. He sighed as the juices trickled through him, exulting in the unexpected gift - _gift_.

A _mrrow_ of laughter came from the brown tabby in front of him.

"Want any more?" she asked.

"Where am I?" he snarled, unsheathing his claws and springing up. His body coursed with energy from the prey, and his fur sprang up as he raised his hackles. "What are you-"

"You're in the ThunderClan camp." she meowed, her voice tightening.

 _Good. Let them fear me. I will-_

He slumped back to the ground, his limbs giving out as the energy fell out of him again.

"ThunderClan?" he grumbled as he struggled on the floor. His pelt prickled with shame. He'd blown it. They wouldn't fear him now. They'd just try to give him orders again, just like everyone.

"We - the cats here, around the lake live in groups, called Clans." Her voice had relaxed, yet he could sense concern - worry.

 _I don't need_ sympathy _._

"And yours is ThunderClan, I suppose. What a name."

"We found you wandering by the lake, barely able to put one foot in front of the other," A sourness entered her voice, then she forced it out. Good. Let them hate him. That star-path had been nothing but dreams. Wandering around this stupid lake, chased out by those fish-smelling cats and then those rabbit-chasers. Idiots, the lot of them.

His snarl broke into a cough. "What a-" He convulsed into coughs, then collapsed.

Everything went black.

"He's too weak. I won't let you disturb him now." The familiar voice woke him.

"This is more important than you realize, Leafpool." A lower voice, from a tom - so that was her name, Leafpool. Weird.

"I just need more-"

"No." The tom's voice was firm, commanding. Like some sort of boss. Stony was done with bosses. He wouldn't-

The tom padded into the den. For the first time, Stony looked around him. He was in some sort of cave, with rock all around him. The glow at the entrance lit the boss's fur like flame. He sniffed. Sunlight wouldn't impress him.

"My name is Firestar." began the tom, his green eyes boring into Stony. He smelled something different off this boss. Not fear, but...something.

"I suppose you're the boss here, then?" Stony yelped - he was so weak he couldn't even snarl. How pathetic. What a useless dream.

"The leader, yes," mewed the tom. He seemed calm. Too calm. "My name is Firestar. And what's yours?"

"Stony," gritted out the kit. "Just Stony. Not like your stupid, long names."

The leader's eyes widened. "Son of stone..." he whispered, then trailed off.

"I wonder, Stony," continued the leader. How could he be so _calm_? "Why was a kit only a few moons old wandering alone by the lake?"

"Don't have parents," Stony snarled. Everything was getting blurry again. "Don't have a home. Just wandering. Outcast and exile and all that."

The leader's eyes widened. There was fear in those, all right. And something else, too. He couldn't tell what.

"So...you have no place to stay?"

"That's right," grumbled Stony. When would this one get to the _point_?

"Then I would offer you a place in ThunderClan…"

A star flashed in Stony's mind, and his fur was suddenly alive with the dream as if he'd dreamed it yesterday. This _must_ be the end of that path. Yet he didn't need cats. He worked alone.

 _But leave, and I'll die in days. Just like before._ Something _has to change_.

"...and show you, and then you can decide whether-"

"No need." cut in Stony. "I accept."

Firestar's eyes widened, yet he nodded.

"Then welcome to ThunderClan, Rockkit."


	3. BloodClan's Promise

"What are you doing here?"

The three kits stared at Rockkit - or in the black one's case, glared - as he stumbled out of the den for the first time. One golden, one gray, one black - and all smelling of fresh food and a soft life.

"What business is it of yours?" he croaked.

"The warrior code-" The black one piped up again.

"Leave it, Hollykit." interrupted the golden one.

The gray kit stared mutinously. His eyes looked weird -

"Are you-" he began.

"Yes." the gray kit gritted out. Rockkit shut up. He wouldn't have wanted to talk about something like that either.

"I'm Lionkit." announced the gold one. "This is my sister Hollykit, and this is my brother Jaykit."

"So all your names end in kit then?" Stony- _Rockkit_ 's voice was still reedy, and he kept striding toward the pile of prey in the center of the clearing. His mind raced. Whatever this _Clan_ place was, it seemed clear it was where that badger had sent him. But why? What could he possibly do with these crazy wild cats?

"Yes," cut in the irritating black one - Hollykit, was it? Another weird name. "It's part of the warrior code."

"And." Rockkit deliberately deadened his voice. If they weren't going to explain things before telling him about them, he wouldn't give them the pleasure of asking.

The kits glanced among themselves, obviously surprised. Had they never met anyone outside this...thing? A gust of wind ruffled his fur, and the sun gleamed through the trees above. Everything felt so...cold. Yet cleaner, fresher. In a way, at least.

"The warrior code," Hollykit's green gaze bored into him, and her voice had gotten louder, like she was trying to teach him something. He half-listened as he got to the prey pile.

"...rules that we live by. Warriors must…" More rules. He was tired of rules, and he didn't need anyone. He heaved a sigh. Why had that stupid badger sent him here?

"When do we get to leave this…" He fumbled around for a word.

"Camp." Hollykit cut him off. "And you'll get to leave once you're an apprentice."

"When's that?"

"Soon." grumbled Jaykit.

"I hope." interrupted Lionkit.

"Why-"

"Because these three decided to go fox hunting before they were out of the nursery." whined an arrogant voice. Rockkit sniffed, then turned to see a cream-colored cat with a stump tail sending a superior glance his way.

"Shut up, Berrypaw." mewed Lionkit. "You-"

"Have you _checked with Ferncloud_ to see if you can get out of the nursery?" sneered the cat.

"Who are you?" grunted Stony.

"Could ask you the same thing, rogue." sneered Berrypaw. "You look like you…"

Rockpath tuned out the chatter, but he could still hear that word. _Rogue_. And that sneer. If all the _Clan_ cats were like that...it was going to be a long day.

 _A Dream_

The wind surfed over Rockkit's nose, prickling his fur. Gray blanketed the dreamscape's sky, and silver-sheened rock stretched off in every direction. Sunset's blood bloomed from every crack in the sky, and cracks of dulled thunder pealed in his ears.

He scratched his claws on the rock, then winced as the sound screeched in his ears. The day had been long, and the cats hadn't helped. He could see the pity in their faces, the contempt for his weakness. They thought he was nothing because he was from the Twolegplace, so why should he stay? Because of some _dream_?

He scratched the ground again. It didn't hurt, though. It felt almost...soft. As if his claws were sinking in something. In...he was bleeding. Or was that red pool bubbling around his claws...was that coming out of the _ground_?

"Having trouble?"

Rockkit jerked. Something was emerging through a cloud of black mist. A shadow...a small one, but his heart still thudded. The wind howled across the rock. Blood pooled around him. The clouds darkened.

And a collared black cat barely taller than himself strode out in front of him. Some kind of _kitty-_ the collar had teeth. Dog's teeth. And it's claws...shining, long, unnatural. What-

"My name is Scourge." The frozen snarl trickled into Rockkit's ears as he shrank back. The scent...he stank of blood, and rot, and all the dredges of a Twolegplace.

"Who…" stammered Rockkit as he tried to unwrinkle his nose. The ice-blue eyes bored into him. "What…" His stomach shook with each breath.

"I am the leader of BloodClan." Scourge's breath hissed in his ears, and the tom shifted his one white paw, scoring the earth with those unnatural claws.

"I didn't think that was...one…" His mouth still jittered too fast for words.

"We aren't." sneered Scourge. "And stop shaking. I'm not here to kill you."

"O...okay." huffed Rockkit. How did he expect him to stop shaking with...he had to pull it together. Be strong. No more weakness.

"You must have wondered why you were summoned here, Stony."

Rockkit...Stony...nodded. How did this cat know his names? It was a dream. Just...like the one that had sent him here.

"You were summoned by StarClan." Scourge lashed his tail and paced around Stony as he continued. "Those fools wanted to use you for their destiny. To manipulate you to serve the _Clans_. By now you must have seen how they treat cats like us. How their precious _code_ protects their soft life."

Scourge's eyes bored into him.

 _The stares of the Clan cats flashing through his mind. The whispers of "rogue". The mutters. The cats clustering and huddling away from him. A few greeted him - the one named Squirrelsomething and her mate, the one called Cloudtail...but most just stayed away._

Because they knew who he was - _no_ , because they hated who he was. Because they thought some scrap-eating kit from the paths was too filthy for their camp. That leader probably let him in because he thought they'd _fix_ him.

"Yes." His body pulsed as he thought of Berrypaw's sneering insults. That filthy apprentice had kicked him around, sending him thudding to the ground. And those kits had _laughed_. They thought everything was a game.

"Good." Scourge's mew softened...like ice slicking off one drop of water. "Then you can help me make them pay."

"Pay?" His voice jittered again. That sounded like… "Pay for-"

"Once…" Scourge began. "It would be better to show you."

 _Cats ready for battle in a clearing of four trees. A flame-colored cat across from Scourge's eyes, the enemy Firestar._

" _The forest is ours. We rule here by the will of Starclan."_

 _Then the battle, and death_.

"Now you see." sighed Scourge. "We wanted what they had. Food, a healthy home, not to be hunted...but it was denied to us. Because of their precious _StarClan_ , and their precious _code_. It's all about the code to them. They don't care about other cats. They just want to keep their plenty, while we wait in the shadows to rot."

Stony pulsed with the fury of battle. He'd heard about this StarClan. Their warrior ancestors, the cats claimed. Why they worshipped a bunch of dead cats, he had no idea, even if they _were_ real. And to use them as an excuse to drive others out...it was like Biter all over again, chasing the runts off his streets.

Something echoed, a faint cry in the sky. Scourge stiffened.

"StarClan." he hissed. "They can't see me, not yet. But think on what I said, and tomorrow night tell me if you will be my apprentice, and help us bring true justice to this filthy lake."

The echo grew louder. How could he let this pass? He wouldn't let them hate cats like him any longer. This was his destiny, this was his path of stars.

"Now _go_." spat Scourge.

All he had to do was take the leap.

"I…" muttered Stony. "I...accept."

The echo of Scourge's laughter still rang in his ears when he woke.


End file.
